Diagnosed With V V S

My son has done a lot of research and has decided I have a syndrome called V V S...

The Spinal Straw / Losing It and Finding Myself

Recently,  I had what might be considered an emotionally challenged episode. I guarantee if I had access to a razor, I would have shaved my legs. There's nothing funny about losing your mind. Which is why I have to find humor in it, so I can keep it.  It started with an MRI gone awry at the tail end of a year of spine surgeries with four children and  a husband on-location. Just not on my location. It was the spinal straw.
I laid on the MRI table as the tech prepped me for my last-ditch effort to diagnose the origin of my left sciatic nerve debacle. An issue that worsened after my most recent artificial disc replacement in my L4-L5. I can not bare weight on my left leg without calling for Jesus. So far he hasn't picked up.

My left foot lilted inward to my right, like a boy left hanging for a kiss. My right foot sat straight up - disinterested. She was not that kind of foot.

The technician noticed the muscle atrophy in my left foot and asked if I would mind if she taped it to my right one to hold my legs in the proper position for them to obtain a clear view of the nerve from my lumbar down to my foot. It's a long nerve. The procedure would take an hour. I was to stay completely still. With my legs straight.

The tape screeched and snapped around my feet. A sound usually reserved for wrapping presents. My left foot was happy.  He got the girl.

Then it was time to position my hands. The tech said I could do one of two things. Hold them above and behind my head, or fold them over my chest.  I opted to place them over my chest. I figured I'd practice for my coffin. Cuz this year was killing me. Then my right hand began to slip, my elbow hit the cold metal of the table beyond the cushion. My right hand has similar issues as my left foot. She's tired. If she were a prostitute, she'd get paid just to lay there. My pinky and ring finger used to at least tingle with aggravated numbness. But now they're over it. Done performing, they have retired into my palm when at rest.  They come out when I make them, but I'm tired too.
I asked the tech if she could tape my hands like she did my feet, accepted the sleeping mask, put in the ear plugs in, held the panic button, and took a breath. Breathing was allowed.

I then asked for a pillow to place under my left knee. This was usually a non-negotiable item for me. In order for my lower spine to be at all comfortable, I need a pillow or leg-riser when laying on my back. She couldn't give me one. It would have been easier to get a Margherita than a pillow. The leg needed to be straight. And flat.

The tech left the room and entered her cockpit.  Her voice came over the speaker. It was time to go deep. My spine and legs were straight as a board. I was  ready. The slab moved my body into the one-hour time capsule.

I was at least grateful for the eye mask. If you are at all claustrophobic, MRI's will send you to the moon. The first time I had an MRI, it was for my neck. They placed me in a Hannibal Lector-type mask. When I entered the tube, I made the great mistake of opening my eyes.  For the first time in my life, I understood the power that the mind has over emotions. I realized why they called  it the 'panic button'.  In a matter of seconds, my eyes saw the blurred edges of the grate over my face morph with the roof of the MRI just inches above the grate. My breath was magnified, As far as my senses were concerned, I was being buried alive. My heart raced, palms sweat, mouth dried, and fear surged through my body. All logic was gone. I squeezed the pain button.  The tech extracted me from the coffin and said, "Oh yes, I forgot to mention, it's probably a good idea if you don't look up." I was hyperventilating. I just experienced my first anxiety attack triggered by an episode of Claustrophobia.  Fortunately, the tech was patient with me. I was not her first freak-out. (Although I did pass her on the way out smoking a cigaret.) She gave me a facecloth and folded it over my eyes. I re-entered the tube. I thought soothing  thoughts. Like MRI techs dressed in Lady Gaga's meat dress, hanging over a lion's den.  Like the ones from Siegfried and Roy. That ate either Siegfried or Roy. I could never keep them straight, perhaps because they're gay.

I now had a coping tool for the MRI. It might be called an "open" MRI, but it doesn't matter to a claustrophobe if you can't see the open part at the crown  of your head. I learned to dress so I never had to change into the assless-chaps, I mean medical gown. As long as you do not wear metal, you're good to go. Nothing with zippers, snaps or hooks. Remove necklaces and bracelets. Rings and earrings are usually ok, unless your hand is near your pelvis at which time you should probably wear the assless chaps.
So, Considering my vast experience this past year with multiple MRI's, I assumed this last MRI would be a walk in the park. Until I choked.

 My arms were taped over my heart. My feet were in bondage. My legs were perfectly straight. About twenty minutes into the scan, the pain began to light up my lower spine. It felt like a knife, twisting into bone right where the inflammation of my sciatic nerve begins.

There are few words to explain this type of back pain. Which is why God created the F-word. My eyes welled with tears. One by one they trickled down my cheeks, whetting my eye mask until river inlets followed the frame of my hairline into my ear plugs.

If I pressed the panic button, it would mean a longer time in the tube. There was no way out of this one. To calm myself, I imagined a white light traveling through my body protecting me from the invisible knife-wielding pain holding court at my L5-S1. After the hour, I was spent. My mascara coiled beneath my Forever Shimmer highlight blush. I don't know why I continue to put makeup on prior to medical tests or procedures. Maybe it's my war paint.

I gathered what composure I had left and entered the hallway to the waiting room.  My head fell onto the shoulder of my mom's  neatly ironed white jacket. It had been almost a year since my journey of spine surgeries, procedures, injections, diagnosis, torture began. My mother held me. My whimper gradually evolving into a guttural moan. Waves of feelings ached into a silent cry; the kind of cry when your heart hurts so much that God decided its tears should never be heard. I slumped deeper into my mother's chest, crumbling, a remnant of what I used to be. The year had finally caught up with me.  The months of recovery from multiple surgeries only to find out there is more to be done. I finally had a taste of what some of the  wounded I work with have gone through. This was my own kind of war. I just didn't wear camo, go to the Middle East, get shot at, fly helicopters,step on an IED, miss the birth of my first child ~ that would be especially odd ~come to think of it, I know little about the pain  our wounded go through. But I do know pain. And I see how people might stare at that 'something' about us that makes their subconscious mind chime in with "Not normal..." I see the doors with the handicapped sign that I cannot open. I enter a public bathroom when the handicapped stall is taken by a child who just didn't know. I notice that well-meaning people will stand when we talk at a party, instead of sitting at my level, leaving my neck strained.
The inability to sit on a park bench, get my kids from school, walk with my husband, love him like I was healed. The fact my car needs a lift for my scooter, there are two wheelchairs in our garage, I have a handicapped placard, our bedroom has a fridge and coffee maker and a leg wedge, a cane and crutches. I am forty-three.

I thought about the MRI. How I held my hands across my heart. How it felt like a coffin. How I felt a part of me die that day. So many times I had listened to one of our troops explain how they felt like a part of them was missing after their incident. I realized I was listening, but I wasn't understanding. They spoke of having to find their 'new normal'. Now I had to find mine. But how.

A nurse brought me a wheelchair and helped us to the car.

I buckled my belt and the feelings built. The heaves of tears and then without warning or any control on my part, a guttural scream erupted from the depths of my soul. The scream of a mother who just lost her child. I had lost myself. It hit me all at once that my world as I knew it was over. The crying increased. My mother's tears fell into mine as she held onto my arm.  We were almost home. My body writhed.  Waves, oceans thrust thru my chest, a vice churning a year of fossilized pain and denial into a kaleidoscope of agony.  

Mom pulled into my driveway. I could not move. My arms and legs were lead. Every ounce of energy was going up into breaking down. It hit me that I was having a breakdown.

Mom stood outside my passenger door. Helplessly. She kneeled on the cement. Her hand on my knee. Her fingers wiping my tears as they fell. For the first time in our life, we didn't care what the neighbors might think. I had earned this right to break all social rules. I could not look in her eyes for fear that I would see her pain and hear her wondering: If she could just get me to bed. If she could just rub my back. If she could just make it all go away. But this was too big for her to handle alone. It was a helplessness only God could touch.

Mom guided me into the house and to the stairs. My daily Everest. My tears fell on each step.  My dog  by my side, my shadow, refusing to take the lead. I crawled onto my bed. The sheets were cool and familiar. I could put pillows between my leg or a wedge underneath.  My daughter's stuffed animal from the night before stared at me. I wanted my children. I wanted my husband home. I wanted I wanted I wanted. I curled sideways into the center of the bed, pulling the sheets and bedspread around me as I curled into a fetal position. My fingers anchored into the pillows, sealing them around my face. I was morning my own death.

I felt sad, angry, guilty that my condition had affected the lives of my family and everyone around me.
I pulled tissue after tissue. My mother held her phone close to her ear, she was using a lifeline. She called my doctor who wasn't there.

It wouldn't stop. I could not control my tears. Over and over I said " I feel like I've died." And I did. I felt exactly like I had died. I now knew what that feeling was.  And it scared me. It was as though God allowed me to venture to the edge of sanity because he knew I would return.

 The waves became smoother. My mind slowed.  I passed out for almost five hours.

My breakdown that day taught me how emotions can take over due to pressure whether it's physical or psychological. I had both. Breaking down was the best things I have ever done, because it is the most human I have ever felt. It was the lowest I have ever been, and one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Without it, I would never know how much the heart can take before it needs to release. How important it is to realize that being different than you once were can possibly be the greatest blessing of your life.
I hope to connect with our wounded more deeply than before. I will see people in chronic pain and wish I could take it away. I understand how powerful the mind can be, and imagine what it could do if I used it as a tool in my healing. My shadow, Reggie, is now registered with the US Service Dog Registry as a Therapy Dog. He can now bring as much joy to others as he brings to me. Even on an airplane.

Ironically, the following day was my Cognitive Behavioral Assessment with my insurance company's psychiatrist to assure I was of sound mind so they could approve the implantation of the Electro Spinal Cord Stimulator Implant. I passed with flying colors. Timing is everything.

I don't know what my new normal will be; If it will include a cane, a chair, a shoulder filled with tears. But I do know that whatever it is, it will be mine to shape and know that whatever it looks like, it will be beautiful, because it is above all else touched by the hand of God, as real as life could possibly be. And for that, I am forever grateful.

The Apple Tree

I bought the apple tree in our back yard when it was a sapling.  I couldn't resist its tiny branches bobbing in the breeze at Lowes. I had wanted to find something for Don's and my anniversary, something living that didn't pee on the carpet. Something to make up for the lemon tree I gave him the year before. That I killed.  So I got him the apple tree. It was just the right size to wrap in a bow. The leaves were sprite green and it would bare fruit. That we might actually eat.

We planted it in the far right corner near the fence.  The following winter was unusually cold for California. Spring came, but the apple tree's leaves did not. She stood shivering like a child who had done something wrong. Summer came and went. At least in the winter she fit in with the rest of the yard.

Each day I glance out onto the yard for some benign purpose. A squirrel. The dog barked. A hummingbird flit. My eyes would routinely catch site of the tree. A skeleton of weathering limbs. Roots saturated with denial. To anyone else, it was a stunted tree to be pulled and tossed. But I couldn't do it. I had already given up on the lemon tree.

As the years passed, my back began to break down bit by bit, until it crashed, like the lemon tree. I now have a cane I use more often, a bed I rarely leave, nurses with names I know and a scooter with a basket. The people at the dog park view my lawn chair as commitment. Trader Joes hands my friend flowers when she shops for me. I have never known friendship or love as I do now. And I have redefined hope. Hope is no longer what I want to happen. It is instead a knowing that whatever it is, it may not look perfect, but I will grow because of it. For a world that used to spin, mine was suddenly still. There was no place to be. But under that apple tree. So I laid upon its shadow. It was a particularly difficult day after one of my many spine procedures and I simply wanted to be cradled by grass, like when I was a child.

The tree had grown taller, as I had grown smaller, but it never offered a leaf or a bloom. It was as though it had a secret it wasn't willing to share because we hadn't earned the right.




Then just the other day I glanced out onto the yard. For no particular reason. A bird, a rabbit, a leaf. A spritely perfect green leaf. On the tree. The apple tree. But not just a leaf. A white flower with delicate yellow beads flowering from its belly. And another. The branches were filled with leaves, with life. It is said that each flower becomes a fruit.  The apple tree was full of flowers.  
I could not believe my eyes. I was sure I was wrong. That maybe last year it birthed a bud. Because it couldn't be that the tree was alive. I stared in awe. Of all the years it could have bloomed, it chose now.

So I Googled the apple tree.  It turned out she did carry a secret. Evidently, apples are 'self-incompatible' - you need two trees growing near each other to have successful pollination.

The apple tree wasn't dead. She was simply alone. Until I laid beside her. She shouldn't have bloomed without another of her kind. Yet she did. She now blooms when hope needed to be seen by an imperfect gal in the form of sprite green leaves and simple white flowers bursting with possibility, and you realize her season has only just begun.

The Cane

My oldest daughter, Macky, posted a photo yesterday on Facebook. It was of just the two of us, with one particular addition - my cane. My hand covered its handle that was shaped like a duck's head. My fingers wrapped around its beak. It was Easter, so the duck handle seemed appropriate. Even though it should have been a duckling, which is akin to a chick. The kids had just finished their egg hunt. Don and I watched as they ran, dodged il-timed sprinklers, and fended off the dogs who though it was a game of tag. With eggs.

Once the hunt was over, I asked the kids to get together real quick for "one shot". My current disability comes with this blessing for them. Because nowadays I can only take one, or I'll feel like falling over, into il-timed sprinkler heads. I no longer carry the big camera and they are secretly grateful. There's a lot of pressure that comes with being in front of a big camera. Now they stand comfortably in their silliness front of my iPhone. They understand the iPhone.

It's not often we have all of our children in one place. So when it happens, the documentarian in me is unleashed. Once a documentarian always a documentarian. Until you are an octogenarian, like me. Oh I know, I'm only 42. But my scaffolding is 84. Which is why I have a cane, with a duck head on it. That should be a chick.

The children dispersed after our quick shot, and Macky asked if she could have a photo. With just me. She will be 19 this weekend. Which means I gave birth to her 19 years ago. I was in 19 hours of labor. Which seemed like a year. So for 20 years, I have been doing this mom thing. And I did it four times. OK, I've done it more than four times. But there were four times that I got it right.

You'd think I'd feel pretty confident with it all, after 20 years. Like photography; I became so comfortable at it, so confident, that things went darned well for being in a pretty competitive field. Kind of like being a mom. It's competitive out there. Blood is spilled. I wonder at moms with children in perfectly coordinated outfits, their hair in slick braids. I'm just happy when my kids aren't the ones with lice that year. Some kids wear new shoes all the time. Mine wear their Sketchers until the playground is sketched into their soles. It's a war out there, I just have chosen to pick my battles. Like telling Macky at age five that it's not okay to go to school with avocados in her shirt.

Macky has been a dichotomy her whole life, living on stage, but never wanted her picture taken at home. So when she asked to have a picture with just the two of us, my heart swelled.

We stood, leaning into one another. I forgot I had the cane. In that moment, it became my own imperfectly- coordinated outfit. My adult daughter, actually asked for a picture with just me. My daughter that had suddenly realized - there might be a day when she will wish she had a photo - of just us. This was not just a photo about us. It was a documentation of the moment when the line between mother and daughter became blurred. I was not just her mother, but her friend. She was no longer a little girl, but an adult who had realized  that life is fragile, and fleeting moments are all too often taken for granted. Like this one.

We looked at the photo on the screen of my phone. I noticed the wrinkles in my chest as I held her closely into my body. The scar on my neck from one of my surgeries was still there. And the cane. And then I noticed something else. My daughter's arms around me, holding me up. The tables had turned. And it was perfect.

In spite of mis-matched socks and crooked parts, my children have turned into everything I had hoped, in spite of my battles. When I look at this photo of my first-born, with her arms around my waist, I know deep in my heart that whatever I was able to do as a mother, although it may not have been perfect, was enough.

Because of my children, I love stronger than I could have ever dreamed. I probably worry more than I  should. I carry their burdens they will never remember. And I will never stop. Because that's what a mother does, when all that matters is how beautiful it is when your child turns to you, and wishes she could carry life's burden. For you. Which she did. As we stood together, with her hand around my waist, and my hand on my cane. It was a moment. It was fleeting. But above all, it was perfect.

You're Putting That Where?

Yesterday I had a Discogram. It does not include a disco ball or a liesure suit. I was going to post a YouTube by a doctor that explains it. Not because it was informative, but because he had the most incredible mullett and I loved his Texan accent.

Awe Hayeck, here it is.

Essentially, it's a procedure done if your spine surgeon is considering an operation. In my case, another one. And another one...The patient is put under sedation and a dye is injected into the disc to help definie the disc area under flouroscopy to see if it is causing the pain. (In this case, it's an extreme case of Sciatica in my left leg.) Then they inject it more, and wake you up so you can tell them how much it hurts. Rude right? Wake you up in the midst of a perfectly good sleep. Anyway, the really fun part is when they inject the dye into another disc they suspect, and pump it up and you jolt to the ceiling in order to tell them it is NOT the pain you have been feeling. Cuz in that world at that moment, that too, is information.

Upon having this procedure yesterday, there is good news and bad news. The good news is, you do not have my spine. The bad news is, my Sciatic nerve is "irreparably damaged". I'm renaming it my SADic nerve. There is a 50% decrease in strength and usage of my left leg, and I have developed a lovely gimpish gate worthy of an Oscar nod.

SPINAL CORD STIMULATOR

The next step is the possibility of a Spinal Cord Stimulator implant.I would essentially have a small generator inserted into my spine that sends low voltage (or high voltage depending on if it's a good hair day or not) to block the sensory of pain. The result is, instead of pain, I will have a tingling sensation, so I may use this elswhere as well. The bad news is it could return one to a more active lifestyle. I hate running. Seriously though, it's pretty cool i that the way it works is the electrical current inturrpts the pain signals from reaching your brain. I will have a pulsing generator in my arse. Now how many people can say that without getting arrested.

First they'll implant a temporary stint with an external pack to see if it works for me. Then for 3-4 days I do anything I want to do and see if it helps me (which he feels it will.) If it does help, then they go in and implant the more permanent one in my spine with a wireless remote control I can clamp to my clothing. I plan on jail-breaking it to also operate the Apple TV.

Besides this, the next procedures are facet blocks and then the burning (cauterization) of nerves at various levels. Think of it as a luau. Without the pig. Or the flowers. and all you get to eat is Poi.

It's all a lot to soak in when you are a sponge oversoaked in spinal fluid. The body is getting a bit tired of it all, but my spirit keeps growing stronger. It's so strange how the slower I get, the easier it is to see what I've been missing. So I keep looking at what is wrong, as what is interesting. Because it is. I have never experienced this knowledge of the body, I stand in awe of what I have taken for granted. And if it's all going to heck in a handbasket, I'd better start searching YouTube for basket weaving classes. Who knows, maybe there's one with a guy and mullett, with a really cool Texan accent leading the way.

A Life Lesson In The Pitts

The propeller drowned out my thoughts. The oversized headphones covered the sides of my face, edging into the sides of my mouth. I was five. My father sat in the back seat of his two-person bi-plane named The Pitts Special, one of the most famous acrobatic planes in the world. Some dads coach baseball. My dad did aerobatic stunt work for shows like Magnum PI and maneuvers like the Lumshevak when he wasn’t working as a captain for Hawaiian Airlines.

On this particular day, it was my first time in the Pitts. Just dad and me. I sat in the front seat too low to see much of anything outside the cockpit, even with a booster seat. He buckled me in with a web of a seatbelt. The click comforted me. He pulled it tight. As though he could lose me. He never did this in the car. Because we didn’t wear them. It was the seventies. No one wore seatbelts in the seventies. That’s why my brother and I fought all of the time. Because nothing restrained us from one another when we drove. Two opposite minded pre-pubescent scallywags floundering for position to prove to our parents who was worse.

This time I was alone with my dad, which rarely happened when I was little. I had my own my side. In the front seat. My dad in the back. Our positions had changed. I was never allowed in the front seat in the car. And for now, there was nothing to prove to anyone. The sweet and sour smell of worn leather and fuel comforted me. It wasn’t for everyone, but it reminded me of my dad. Like the tarmac of the airport with roaring engines, the cold floor of an airplane as I slept on a small square pillow under a stranger’s seat on the way to and from our grandparents' farm in Vermont, it was all a reminder of my father and his love for something greater than anything else in the world, airplanes. He is now 73. His house is a museum of airplane memorabilia. The only things missing is the thing he loved the most. The smell of worn leather and fuel.

I had no idea that on that day, when I was five, he was to lay the groundwork for one of my life’s greatest lessons.

The large headphones crackled, drawing me into my father’s world. Where it was just us. He spoke to me like God in a tin can.  When I answered him, I was heard. Was I ok, yes I’m fine Daddy, followed by an eek and a giggle. The only rule that day was that I had to wear close-toed shoes for safety. I didn’t understand how close-toed shoes could keep you safe, but I went along with it. I was elated with the newness of it all. He turned the propeller. I was sold. It roared. It popped like bubble wrap if you were listening to it with huge headphones that covered your face and went into your mouth. I was only five, but to this day have never felt so alive.

We began to taxi. The gibberish began in my ears as he spoke to a little man in my head who spoke the same language. My tiny legs dangled, but I could reach the stick. He wanted me to hold onto it, so I could understand what he did to make us fly. We positioned on the runway. The propeller and the engine grew louder. We began moving forward and faster, the rudder controls below my feel swiftly jolting back and forth.  Then he said it, “Get ready sweetie, here we go!” And we were up. I pulled my eyes to the sky and saw only blue. It was the first time I saw only the sky and nothing else. Higher and higher we went. Soon I could peek out and sense the enormity of what we just did. We were flying. Like a bird does without the leather and the fuel. I could see tiny houses I thought were huge, and huge mountains I thought were too big to climb. We flew between the hills of the Koolau range, like kids on a playground breaking the rules.

Dad liked to break rules. One time my brother was running for president of the student body. Dad printed up hundreds of flyers and buzzed the school, dropping them all over the campus. My brother won.

Then it happened. We had leveled out, and I heard him say “Honey, take over the plane.” I fought him, there was no way I could do that! I wasn’t able to fly a plane.  We would crash. Or so I thought. Until he convinced me I could do it. So I did. I took control with my hands and held on for dear life, following his directions. I did it. I was flying the plane. All by myself.  After about five minutes, he took back the controls and told me to “hold on!”. Then he rolled it. The sky and sea became a kaleidoscope of nature, and I have never looked at it the same way again.

It was a story I had in my pocket for years to come. How my father let me fly a plane when I was five. It planted a seed in my brain that I could do anything. By the time I was fourteen, my brain was a garden of possibility. As I grew it was my father’s goal to introduce me to the things he loved to do so we could do them together. Dad loved to SCUBA dive. By fourteen he had me PADI certified and diving to 90 foot depths and discovering sunken ships from WWII off the coast of Oahu. One of his favorite diving spots was Shark’s Cove. Although he didn’t tell me the name of it until after we dove. By 16 I was a certified sailplane pilot, positioning the rudders with my own feet. By this time my parents were divorced and I was living with my dad so much of this was out of my mother’s hands. She would have had a heart attack. Like I did when Dad told me the name of Shark’s Cove. But with each adventure came a shot of adrenaline. Something about them made me feel how magnificent life is when pushed to its limit. We hiked to the top of Mauna Loa, taking pictures along the way. He also introduced me to photography.

I often wondered if he really did give me the controls to the airplane that day. Did I really fly it by myself? The older I became, its truth haunted me. So this week as we sat on the couch after a long Easter weekend, I asked him, "Remember when I was five, and you gave me the controls of the airplane?" Fully expecting him to look down in to his gin and offer a condolence, instead he looked at me and said, "Yes, you did. You flew that damn thing all by yourself." It was then he said, “Flying isn’t all that hard, really. It’s like life. It’s just something you have to get used to, in order to do it well.”

My dad taught me I could do anything. Because doing anything, isn't really that hard. You just have to be willing to do it, and get used to doing it. Before you know it, you can be doing what you once thought was impossible.

So when life gets hard nowadays, I imagine sitting in that seat that was too low to see anything but the sky. The headphones hugging the sides of my head and over my cheeks. My father’s voice comforting me from a far away land. And I know I can do this. This life thing. Because one day, if I play my cards right, I will fly again and this world will seem so very small. I will soar and spin, into a kaleidoscope of nature and find something new that will let me know that anything truly is, possible.

8 Tips for Relationships

8. If you go to bed mad, say "I love you" before you close your eyes. Out loud. Even if your words come out sideways.

7. If he leaves his socks on the floor next to the hamper, and you want to kill him, stop. Then imagine if his socks no longer fell to that floor.

6. If he enjoys a good cigar, and you want to choke him, ask him to smoke on the porch. So he can get some fresh air. Then go do something you never get to do when he's in the house. Like watching Real Housewives who want to strangle their husbands, because they smoke cigars.

5. If you are both exhausted at the end of the day, and all you want to do is tell him how tired you are, just rest your head against his chest and dangle your arms around his body. He'll get the point, and you never know where it may lead nomatter how tired you are.

4. If your husband is not as excited about the great deal you got at Macy's, it's because to men, nothing is a deal. It's a purchase of something at the price it should have been in the first place, and the result is still less money in the bank.

3. If he asks how you learned to do that, the answer is Cosmo.

2. If you've been home with the kids all day, don't take it out on him. It wasn't him. It was his sperm.

1. If you ever wonder what he sees in you, that's why he loves you. Because you wonder.

Catfish

 A catfish has eyes on the side of its head, so it never sees what is right in front of it. Life can often be viewed the same. We look around and wonder where it went. Change is a good thing. As long as we can look back and still cherish what was right about the past. Even if we missed it the first time around.

My grandparents' house reminds me of a simpler time. But to them, it was never easy. The Depression, the loss of two children, and burdens I could not see as a child. Like a catfish. My eyes to the side of my head. Why is it then, that now at the age of forty-two, I thrive in the memories of summers at their home? Their phone stuck to the wall. The cord forever entangled in a spiral purgatory. Or their other phone. The one with the black handset perched lazily in the nook of the solid black base on the telephone table. I still have that table. It sits under my fake European clock. There is so little I buy nowadays that is real. Home Goods and Costco have cornered the market on items with faux character. We even have “character wood” in our house. It’s a hard wood floor that looks lived in, or on. How I ache for a floor that has character because it earned it. Like my grandmother’s linoleum floor. It was white and had been there for decades. The corners of the kitchen were dog-eared. In one corner was a wall we stood against flat-backed and eyes closed as our height was registered for that year. In the other corner was a spice rack next to an electric stove where I learned to cook scrambled eggs. My grandmother taught me the technique of lifting the pan-handle just-so, so the liquid would fall to the furthest corner of the pan and cook just enough to earn another swirl of the yolk by my hand. The spatula was special, because it was my grandmother’s. Everything she owned was special. Cooking eggs with her spatula was special.  Next to her stove was the sink. Where I washed dishes by hand. I still remember the smell of the liquid dishwashing soap on her sponge, and the iron sponge specifically for the cast-iron skillet. The skillet was so heavy; I had trouble handling it alone in the porcelain sink. It would clonk on the rim of the counter as I maneuvered it to its bath. I could never do dishes quietly. I tried. My grandmother warned aloud from the living room that I was banging the dishes, they would break, I needed to be careful, I was taking too long. But I liked doing the dishes, the warm water and suds forming in my fingers. The accomplishment of seeing the food and crust swirl away into the drain as I caught the larger pieces just in time to throw them in the trashcan under the sink.

To the left of the sink, was a long counter where clean dishes were stacked to be put away, and the breakfast table where secrets were kept. It was our Internet. Where aunts would use their linen handkerchief freely. Where the priest held my grandparents’ hands. It was where I saw my mother cry both kinds of tears. Where cards were dealt. And wills were arranged. It wasn’t all happy. But it was real. And we could touch it.  At the bottom of their backyard hill was a pond. Filled with trout. Not catfish. Which is why I’ve never had catfish. Trout reminds me of their house. So I order Trout. Nothing against Catfish.

I miss that time, because I was at an age when I could not see ahead. I was too young to look ahead. Swimming, like a catfish in shallow water with large saucered eyes. It was simple to me. And to me, it was beautiful.

Things I Believe

I am a mother of four. From a mother of two. She lost a brother when he was ten hours old and a sister who was thirty. This forever affected my mother. Because she knew we could die at any moment. Which constantly has me questioning life. My father was a fighter pilot in the Air Force. He can still smell jet fuel in his lungs. Because he misses it. He is 72. My brother is two years older than me and had a dream that no one believed in. Until it came true. He will be a councilman someday. Or something greater than anyone imagined. He was my idol growing up because he was quiet.

I like yoga when it's easy. Pizza with soft crust. My egg yolks fully cooked. Sea salt from a dish scattered from the brush of my fingertips. Lobster reminds me of my grandfather who taught me the art of eating it whole, its eyes teetering from the snapping of its claws. Dipping the meat in melted butter then dragging it through the salt on my plate.

Sometimes I stand barefoot in the grass and regret I wear shoes at all. My favorite day is seventy-four with a Santa Ana wind. A house without dimmers makes me sad. Showers are my think tank. The toilet is my bunker. No one can expect anything from me in the toilet. I love when my dog kisses my feet or his tongue swipes my nose. The smell of someone else's fireplace gives me hope. The silence of a neighbor's house makes me wonder. I care if the checker at Ralph's thinks I'm nice. I try to return the cart in case someone's watching. I listen to people's conversations in line and wish I could say something. I wonder if my hairdresser is really happy. If my children's friends think I try too hard.

I worry if I'm parenting properly. I believe love is based on respect and without respect there cannot be love. The proudest moment of my life was completing my degree as a single mother of two. I think everything we endure we chose to happen before we were born. I believe fame is fleeting. Feeling is forever. Relationships are the key to purpose and meaning is only found in following your truth. I think people talk about others so they don't have to look at themselves. I believe mirrors lie. I believe we are not supposed to see ourselves as others do, otherwise we wouldn't be us. I think we have many soulmates and not just one. Like many teachers so we learn different lessons. I think marriage is made by hands with hope for the future of our world.

I think government is where hope goes to die as it is wrapped in a silken web of hypocrisy.

I wonder why war is an option. Why a young person cannot vote but can take a life for a country he barely knows. I wonder what patriotism means today.

When an old person walks slowly past, I wish I could see a picture of when they were young. My junk drawer gives me comfort. I can never find a pen. Or scissors. Or tape. But my children can. I cut my own hair when I was five. I first learned adults can lie when I was four. A crashing wave makes the Earth seem legit. The beach seduces me into retreat. I think adults are kids who've been around a long time. I think everything will be valuable someday. My idea of organization is putting things in bags. I'm obsessed with butts. Women with liposuction make me jealous. Perfection to me is fascinating and then boring. I like my dogs to sit on the sofa.

I admire people with manners. When children call me Mrs. My husband is my best friend. I wonder why he loves me. If one of my children died I would consider suicide. But I would stop. Because my other children were alive. If my husband passed I would never remarry. Because I loved the best there will ever be.

I see myself aging. It makes me scared. But it makes me relieved. Because now it gets real. Men do not stare but will care what I say. Women won't judge and might admire my age. When I feel strongly about something I will express it, but time has taught me to listen more than to speak.

I wish to be cremated. My ashes spread over my grandparents' farm. I believe in God. A power greater than anything our world could ever understand. So I don't try to understand. I just believe. I believe God is in me. In my children. My husband. In my neighbor's quiet house. It is in the boy who broke my heart and the man who stole it and made it whole. I believe one day it will all make sense. So for now the only thing I can do is be me. I am broken but aren't we all? We connect because we have missing pieces that others fill. Life is a puzzle. When it's complete we will see what it is. From above.

I know there is more to life but for now it is enough. Because grasping for it too soon will be fruitless. I believe in stopping. In letting life happen as it should. In showing up.

I will live until my time has come and embrace the end as the final chapter in the most wonderful book I've ever read. Like a child not wanting it to end, but too desperate to know the ending to stop.

This is what I think. Who I am. To anyone who cared enough to read this. I wish you the same. To stand in the beauty of our unfinished self and in the awe of a world that is not our own. I hope you embrace your journey with observation and reflection. And to believe that all you are is already enough. Even if you are perfectly broken. Like me.

A Mother, A Daughter, and A Cup of Coffee

This morning I was awake at 4:30 due to spinal nerve blocks performed yesterday. My mom stayed overnight with me. I couldn't sleep due to the steroids in the injections, which propelled me to the kitchen. Like Lance Armstrong. Only different.

Mom came downstairs after hearing my thumping of cabinets, tapping of the coffee strainer against the trash can from yesterday's grounds, scooping the last bit of Roast out of the bottom of the bag, and  the hollow clunk of the lid on the coffee maker. She was awake at 3:15. Without steroids. But life downstairs means little to her if she is alone. A quality I too rarely admire.

I laid down on the sofa in front of the fire, gratefully stunned by the silence of sleeping children and comatose nerves.

I share the conversation below, because it struck me as a dynamic so normal, yet utterly fantastic in its simplicity. We are a mother and daughter simply trying to find a sweet spot in the evolution of time. Think of it as a personal study of the mother-daughter dynamic boiled down to a simple cup of coffee.

Mom: (In kitchen) Honey can I get you a cup of coffee?

Me: (On sofa in front of fire) I'll get it Ma, no worries, it's not done yet.  

Mom: Can I get down a mug for you?

Me: No Ma, I'll get it, but thank you. (I rise from the sofa)

Mom: Well, which cup do you want? (She stares at the cabinet of mugs)

Sidebar: I have a thing about mugs. There are 28 mugs in our cabinet. I have three that I use on a daily basis. Because the lip of it is just right. But some days I want a bigger mug. Like my mug I ordered from The View during the Rosie phase. Rosie's face is all faded now, as is Barbara's, but they still look good. Some days, I like to use my mug from The Coffee Bean with a quote on it from Alice in Wonderland that says "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." But this morning it was in the dishwasher.

Me: Just get yours, I'll get mine. 

Mom: Do you have your special creamer? I couldn't find it. 

Me: I'll get it Ma. It's shaped like a milk carton now. 

Mom: Well THAT's why I couldn't find it. 

I set the creamer on the counter under the cabinet of neglected mugs to choose mine for today. It was my other special mug. The one that says, "PEACE. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

Mom:The coffee looks ready. Is it ready?

Me: The timer hasn't gone off, it's too thick right now. It will be too strong for you.

Mom: But you always like it strong.

Me: Not today Ma, wait just a minute and it will be fine.

-----------we wait-----------

DING!

MOM: COFFEES READY!

Me: OK, I'll be there in a minute (sitting on the sofa)

Mom: Do you want me to get you coffee?

And so it goes.

I love my Mom. She loves me. No matter how old I get, how many children I have raised, or wrinkles I have earned, I will forever and always be her child. One day, she will not be here to ask me if I would like a cup of coffee. And I will not be able to write about the simplicity of her offer. So for now, I breathe, she exhales, and we grow through time. Hoping one day it will be easier, with yes and no answers. But how very, very boring that would be. Especially over freshly brewed cup of coffee.